The Price Of Tears
by Anti-Kryptonite
Summary: Little Rum and Belle are friends now, but he still hasn't succeeded in getting his bear back from Regina. With Rum's deals and Belle's help, though, all things are possible. Sequel to 'The Value Of A Smile.'


A/N: Thanks to dreatine for asking what happened after the end of 'The Value Of A Smile,' which got me thinking and then writing. This is just a fun continuation of the child versions of the characters I love so much, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I do love reading the reviews and hearing what you all think, so feel welcome to let me know! :)

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

The Price Of Tears

* * *

It was very different, having Belle as a friend. For one thing, his tree-house got cluttered with her storybooks and there was never enough time in the day for all the places she wanted to show him, the games they played with Gold, the stories she told him as he traced his fingers over the colorful pictures of her books. For another, he got to see her smile all the time, usually at him, and she laughed, too, and that made everything lighter and warmer and better.

"Is this what it's like?" he asked her one day when they were eating some cookies. He'd brought another carrot from his mom's bag of vegetables in the fridge, because he knew it was important they eat healthy things—at least, that was what Mom always said when she put olives or celery in her drinks—but the cookies were so much more delicious, and Belle had told him that sometimes it was okay not to eat your veggies.

"Is this what what's like?" she asked. Crumbs fell out of her mouth and she laughed, which made him laugh too. He handed her a napkin, carefully, because it was very important to take care of Belle. She didn't have a mom at all and her dad didn't spend a lot of time with her, so Rum knew it was up to him to give her lots and lots of attention. "Thank you," she said and wiped her mouth.

"Having a friend," Rum answered her. "Is this what it's always like, having a friend?"

And if it was, he suddenly knew why David and Mary spent all their time together, why Archie hung around Marco, the older kid from the hardware store, so often. Not that Rum really deserved to have many friends, or ever would, with his short, skinny body and his way of making deals and scowling at people—his 'unfriendly' face, as Mom called it—but he liked having just one. Belle was better than all the rest of the kids on the block put together anyway.

Belle scrunched her face up in the way she did when she was thinking really hard. "I think so," she said slowly. He loved how she always took time to make sure she was giving him the right answer. "In the books, when people have friends, they're always having fun. Or else when they're sad, their friend cheers them up."

Rum nodded. "Yeah." He tore his cookie in two, looking down at it because it was hard to look at her when he was so afraid of what she might say. "Is this what it's like for you, too? When you're with Ruby?"

He was surprised when she giggled, and he looked up at her before he could stop himself. Belle smiled at him and scooted closer so that she could put her hand over his. He dropped his cookie, but he didn't care. "I like Ruby," she said, all quiet and serious even though she was smiling. "But I'm not _best_ friends with her. I'm only _best_ friends with you."

"Oh," Rum said. He wanted to say more, like the heroes did in her stories, with their long speeches and their pretty words, but he couldn't think of any. So he just smiled at her, his heart all fluttery like paper in the wind. "I'm glad."

"Me, too," she said with a nod, then she giggled again and handed him the half a cookie he'd dropped.

"Are you thirsty?" he asked her, suddenly worried that he'd forgotten too long and she'd be thirsty enough to leave him and go home.

"A little," she said.

She got up with him and followed him to the water bottle he kept on the shelf next to the carrot. He took the teacup with its tiny chip from the box under the window and very carefully poured some water into the cup. "Here you go," he said, and his heart was still so happy and dancing that he bowed to her while handing her the drink.

When she laughed, he was glad he'd done it even though he'd almost tripped and dropped the cup. "Thank you," she said, very politely, just like a princess, and she bowed, too, and took the cup from him. He watched her to make sure she didn't cut her lip on the chipped part; he'd done that once and it had hurt a lot, though he hadn't told her. He didn't want her to feel bad about the chip and say she was sorry again. He just wanted her to be happy, all the time, when she was with him.

He didn't mean to ignore her, not really, but he looked over his shoulder and out the window while he was putting the water bottle away, and he thought he saw Regina. It made all the happiness go out of the day like it was sucked out with a vacuum cleaner, and Rum hated that. He didn't get to spend enough time with Belle anyway—not when she had to go places with her dad and had to be home in time for dinner and sometimes spent a couple hours with Ruby or Leroy and Astrid—and he liked to pretend that the only part of the world that still mattered was the tree-house where they were together. Seeing Regina made the rest of the world more important, though.

He'd been trying and trying and _trying_ to talk to Regina ever since he and Belle had become friends, to see if she would trade Belle's pretty horse-decorated mirror for his bear. But Regina had been gone for a few days and then she'd been busy with the new girl who'd been showing up and hanging around Mary and August—Emma, her name was, and Jefferson said that since no one knew where she lived, that must mean she lived on the street or maybe in the abandoned house where Rum had hidden Gold to get Belle to come live with him—and then Rum had gotten distracted by Belle's stories and her dog and her smiles, so he _still_ didn't have his bear.

But if Regina was down there now, then maybe this was his chance.

The binoculars he'd gotten from Regina in his very first deal were locked up in their secret cubbyhole, but it was easy for him to get them out. Belle watched him curiously. She didn't say anything, and he was glad because it made it easier for him to concentrate on what he was doing. When he looked through the binoculars, he did see Regina, on the corner of the block, kneeling on the ground with another girl Rum couldn't see clearly enough to tell who it was.

"What are you looking at?" Belle finally asked. He was so surprised by the question and by her sneaking up to stand right by his shoulder that he almost dropped the binoculars. Her hand covered his and helped him keep the binoculars off the hard ground.

"Regina's down there," he explained. "I can get my bear back."

"Oh! I have the mirror!" Belle's eyes went wide and excited and she smiled _again_. He was starting to think that she smiled at everything, but he didn't mind. She turned and rushed over to the sleeping bag where she always put her backpack. Inside it, she'd shown him where she kept the silver mirror, all bright and shiny, wrapped up in a towel. Belle picked up the backpack, hooked it over her shoulder, and turned back to look at him. She looked like a hero on a quest, and Rum was suddenly scared. _He_ wasn't a hero—most of the times, when she was telling him the stories, he would feel all tight and scared in the middle of his belly, and he always felt like the heroes would die before they reached the happy endings Belle liked so much.

But Belle was already moving to the ladder, and he knew she didn't like going down by herself, so he took a deep breath—that's what Belle always did before she climbed the ladder; she said it made her feel braver—and he followed her down.

He was half-hoping that Regina would be gone by the time they got there, though that was a secret he wouldn't even tell Belle. He didn't want her to laugh at him. But Regina was still there, arguing with Emma over something small in between them. Rum didn't need his binoculars or to get any closer to know what they were arguing about. When Regina had gotten back from wherever her older sister, Cora, had taken her, she'd found a little gray kitten. Her parents wouldn't let her keep him, but she snuck him food and called him Henry. Rum had thought maybe he could hide Henry and make Regina give him his bear in exchange, like he'd done with Gold and Belle, but Emma claimed the kitten was hers, and she watched over him when Regina had to go home. They were always fighting over the kitten now, so Rum wasn't surprised at all to see gray fur climbing over Regina's lap.

"He doesn't like it when you hold him like that," Emma said, like a mom or dad telling their kid how to hold a baby. "He hates it when you hold him tight."

"He's my kitten," Regina yelled, "and I can hold him the way I want to!"

Emma smiled, but it wasn't a nice smile like Belle's. "He won't like you if you do."

Rum didn't like being ignored, so even though he was scared, he cleared his throat to make them notice him. Belle stood right by him, her hands wrapped over the straps of her backpack to keep the mirror safe. "I need to talk to you, Regina," Rum said. He was very careful to make sure his voice sounded mean and strong, like Gaston's or his mom's new boyfriend who liked to play with knives in his hands and made fun of Rum for being scared of touching them.

"I'm busy," Regina said bossily. She was hunched over, like she was hiding Henry from him, but when she looked over her shoulder to talk to Rum, Emma moved really fast and stole Henry from out of her arms. "Hey!" Regina screeched, and she actually looked really scared.

"You were holding him too tight!" Emma insisted, cradling the kitten in her arms. She had on the same red jacket she was always wearing, and the kitten's little red tufts of fur around his neck looked just like a scarf that blended into her coat. "You have to be careful with him. Here, give me his toy."

Regina's eyes went narrow and mean, like they had when she'd told Rum she wouldn't give him his bear back. "No."

"Oh, no, Rum," Belle suddenly said. Rum looked at her and he felt himself go even more scared when he saw how sad she looked. He'd only ever seen her that sad before when she thought Gold was lost or when she talked about her mom. But Gold was safe in the yard and he hadn't asked about her mom for a long time. He felt very small, like a little kid instead of the big kid he was, but he looked back at Regina.

His eyes went wide and hurt and mad all at once when he saw what Regina was trying to hide from him.

It was his bear. His little bear that had been with him his whole life. The bear that hugged him when his mom yelled at him for making his dad leave or for making her boyfriend laugh at her. The bear that stayed with him no matter what and loved him even when he dropped it on the way to preschool or accidentally spilled his juice on it.

Regina was holding his little bear at her side, and there were little bits of white stained across his bear where the kitten had scratched tears in him.

Rum wasn't sure what happened, but he wasn't scared anymore. He wasn't even a _little_ scared. He was _mad_, madder than he'd ever been before. There were little fireflies flying around the edges of his eyes and he felt big and strong and scary even though he was the same as he'd always been.

"Give him to me!" he snarled, like he was a bear, or like he was Gold when that mean Keith had knocked Belle down with his bike. He jumped forward and reached out to grab hold of his bear, but Regina ran backward and held the bear behind her back.

"No!" she shouted. "He's mine! We traded fair and square!"

"Henry loves him," Emma interrupted. She was little, younger than everyone else, but she never seemed like she was scared and she never cared what all the kids said about her. She didn't look scared at all when she looked at Rum. "It's the only toy Henry will play with—he loves that bear."

Rum took a deep breath, but this breath was because he was so mad he needed more room to keep it all, not because he needed to be brave. But before he could talk, Belle took a little step forward to look at Emma from behind Rum's shoulder. "It's a teddy bear," she said, her brow scrunched up. "It's not a cat toy. Henry's a cat—he needs a cat toy. Dad says dogs only get dog toys, not kid toys, and I think cats are the same."

Emma shrugged, like she didn't care about the bear or Belle at all. "It doesn't matter. Henry loves him. He's perfect for us."

Regina glared at Emma, but she didn't take the bear out from behind her back or else Rum would have tried to grab him again. "And he's _mine_," she said. "I can use him for whatever I want."

Usually when he was with Belle, Rum felt warm, like summer and fluffy blankets and David and Mary's hot cocoa. But now, even though she was right by him, he felt cold, like winter and snow and ice. Like the look in Mom's eyes after she'd drank too much of her smelly drink, or the smile her boyfriend would sometimes give Rum when Rum backed away from his knife games. He felt like he could be Gold, with teeth and claws and a growl that made people afraid, instead of scared little Rum.

"I have a secret to tell you, Regina," he announced, and he stepped to the grass on the yard right by them. Regina frowned at him, but when he watched her without saying anything, she huffed and stepped up close to him. She loved knowing secrets no one else knew. He just wished she wasn't so careful about keeping his bear out of his reach or maybe he could have grabbed him away from her.

"What secret?" she asked, watching him like she thought he would attack her. She was bigger than him and her older sister had already gotten him in trouble with his mom before, so he wasn't going to jump on her and wrestle for his bear. But deals were better than fighting anyway, and he already knew what to say to make her give him his bear back.

"I made Gold disappear," Rum said, and he smiled a proud smile at her. "I made everyone think he was lost. I took him away from his yard and I made him get lost—a whole big dog. Do you really think I can't make a little tiny kitten vanish into thin air if I want to?"

He'd never seen Regina look so small or scared. She looked like a regular little girl, then, like she could be just like Mary or Ruby or sickly Aurora. She even blinked a lot, and he thought maybe she was about to cry, but he didn't care. She could cry as much as she wanted—could cry as much as _he_ had when he'd realized he wouldn't get his bear back—but it was only what she deserved for stealing everything he cared about from him.

Regina sniffled and made her shoulders square and straight to make herself look better. "Yeah…well…you _can't_ take him. You said you can't go back on deals, so that means your bear is mine and you don't get to take him back."

Rum was startled when Belle stepped up next to him, but he still felt so cold that he didn't even show how surprised he was—or how scared he was that she had heard him tell Regina he took Gold on purpose.

"We want to buy him back," Belle said fiercely. Rum wasn't sure why she read about heroes so much when she _was_ one, but he couldn't help but be extra glad that she was _his_ friend. "Right, Rum?" she asked, looking at him.

"Right." He nodded as strongly as a leader should.

Belle slid the backpack off her shoulders and knelt to pull open the zipper and take out the mirror. She held it out to show Regina and the sunlight reflected off the glass so that Regina blinked and looked away. "Look," Belle said, turning it over. "It has horses on the back. You like horses, don't you?"

Regina bit her lip, her hand clenching extra tight over his bear. She smiled when Rum flinched at her obviously tight grip, and she tilted her chip up in the air. "I don't want—"

"If you don't want it, I'm sure Emma would like it," Rum interrupted, smiling his usual smile, the only one he used to know how to do before Belle said they were best friends. He looked over at Emma, who tilted her head at him, surprised he was talking about her. "What do you think?" Carefully, doing his best not to drop it, he took the mirror and held it out toward Emma.

She frowned at him, then looked at Regina and down to the mirror. Finally, she smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling with the secret they shared. "It's very nice," she said. "Maybe I do want it. Henry might like to look at his reflection."

"No!" Regina stepped between them quickly when Emma reached out to take the mirror with the hand that wasn't holding Henry. "You can't take it—he gave it to me _first_!"

"I didn't _give_ it to you," Rum said, a little irritated. "You can only have it if you give my bear to me."

Regina hesitated, but she looked back at Henry, safe in the crook of Emma's elbow, looked down at the bear hanging from her hands, and finally nodded. "Okay. Fine. You can have the bear. It doesn't matter, anyway. He's all ruined."

And she dropped his bear to the ground.

Rum couldn't breathe. The air got all trapped in his throat and turned hard as a rock so that he almost thought he would cry. He didn't even care that Regina had grabbed the mirror out of his hand or that Emma was hurriedly sneaking away with Henry while Regina was distracted. All he cared about was the bear, full of rips and tears, laying on the ground all by itself. His eye was pointed up toward Rum, and he looked mad and sad all at once, as if he blamed Rum for letting him go and not rescuing him sooner.

"Wait, Regina!" Belle said, and Rum hurriedly rushed forward to scoop up his bear in case Regina was trying to steal him again. But no, she was just leaving with the mirror, starting to run after Emma to try to take back Henry. She stopped when Belle called her, though, and looked over her shoulder.

"You said the mirror was mine!" Regina said, and she sounded as if breathing was as hard for her as it was for Rum, touching his bear for the first time in _forever_.

"It is," Belle assured her. "I just thought that if you like horses, you could talk to Daniel. He lives by Gaston, and his mom and dad own horses at a stables. Maybe he'll let you ride them."

"Oh." Regina paused but then nodded. "Okay."

"Good riddance," Rum muttered when she finally left. Then he looked down at his bear. "Bae," he whispered, and it was the first time he'd said his bear's name since he'd made that deal with Regina.

Finally. _Finally_, with Belle's help, he had his bear back. He didn't think he'd ever be able to pay Belle back, not in a million years, because even if he was ripped up and mad at him, Bae was finally back where he belonged. It was perfect, more perfect than anything else. All those deals he'd made, all the things he'd gotten from the other kids, all the time he'd spent in his tree-house by himself planning how to get Bae back, all of it had worked. Maybe he wasn't a hero like in a story, but he had Bae back and Belle was still his best friend—and that meant this was all perfect.

This was his happiest ending.

* * *

Belle was happy, so happy she was bouncing on her feet. She wanted to jump up and down and squeal and hug Rum, but he was always so quiet that she'd learned not to scare him by being too loud. But maybe she would hug him anyway, because surely he was just as happy as she was. He had his bear back, after all, the bear he'd lost and Regina had kept from him, and Belle had finally been able to help him like she'd always wanted to, and everything was perfect now.

"Isn't this the best day ever, Rum?" Belle asked, and even though she was trying to contain herself, she clapped her hands excitedly.

But Rum didn't say anything. He just looked down at his little dark brown bear, fuzzy and fluffy, and his hair was covering his face she couldn't tell if he was smiling, but he seemed too quiet to be happy. Belle felt all of her excitement start trickling down from her tummy to leak out of her sandals, like it was water and she had a hole.

"Rum?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

Sometimes, even when she asked very nicely, Rum wouldn't answer her questions. He'd give her his tiny mouth-twitch smile and change the subject and show her the stars or a little waterfall on Katharine's porch through his binoculars, or he'd get her another cookie or tell her a joke that would make her giggle and forget what she'd wanted him to tell her. She almost thought he was going to do that now, but finally he let out a heavy sigh and said in a very wobbly voice, "He's all tored up." He shifted and shook his head as if to get rid of a fly. "He's been torn to shreds."

"May I see?" Belle asked timidly.

Rum hesitated for so long that Belle had to shift on her feet. He curled over his bear as if to protect him from the whole entire world, even Belle, before he finally nodded. "Okay," he whispered. "You can look."

Belle had been hoping it wouldn't be very bad, but Rum was right—his little bear was all in shreds, like his fur was ribbons, and his white stuffing looked exactly like bear blood. But Rum was blinking really hard to pretend he wasn't crying, and his dancing fingers were pale and shaking as he held his bear, and Belle couldn't let him know that she thought it was just as bad as he did.

"It's okay," she said comfortingly, and she really hoped she wasn't lying. Rum always told the truth and he got really, really mad when people lied to him. "We can fix him."

Rum took a surprised breath and looked at her like she was an angel. "You can?" he breathed.

She didn't care if it was right or not—she just hugged him and hoped it helped him as much as it did her. His bear was soft and warm between them, like a pillow. "I'll fix him for you, I promise."

This time, Rum's smile was more than a mouth-twitch, even if it was still small.

It wasn't a very long walk to her house, and Belle was glad. Rum cradled his bear in his arms and glared at anyone he saw. He even growled, once, when they passed a dark-skinned girl Belle didn't remember ever seeing before and a tall, skinny kid who stared at them for a long time. He seemed like a wild animal on one of the nature shows her dad sometimes let her watch, ready to do anything to protect his baby. He was scared, and Belle didn't blame him all—she remembered how scared _she_ was when she didn't know where Gold was, and that was only for an afternoon. Rum had been missing his bear for…for _forever_.

But still, she didn't like seeing Rum go as quiet and hurt as he had been when she first met him, his smiles all hidden away, so she stepped a little closer to him and put her hand on his arm. He went all stiff and bristly, like cats when they saw Gold, but then he relaxed and let her hold his hand. He didn't growl anymore after that, but he did bow his head so his hair kept hiding his eyes, and Belle thought that maybe that was even worse, because sometimes she knew it was easier to be mad than to be sad.

"Here we go," she said, relieved when they finally got home. She let go of his hand to open the gate so he could get in, then closed it behind them. Rum hadn't been to her house except once, the first time she'd invited him over for cereal. Her dad had frowned at him and told Belle not to get dirty or to spend too much time with 'bad kids,' and Rum had stopped talking or smiling and then he'd left. He'd never come back after that, no matter how many times Belle invited him, but now he just walked in without even seeming to notice.

Gold came running up, grinning and wagging his tail. "Down, Gold!" Belle said loudly while Rum held his bear up as carefully as if he was an Easter egg. But Gold didn't try to jump at all, just gave Rum a little lick on his hand and followed Belle closely, whining just a bit. Ruby had told Belle once that dogs could smell tears and would try to be nice to whoever was crying, so even though Belle couldn't see Rum's face, she was pretty sure he really was crying. And she _hated_ that. It made her feel tight and sad and helpless, just like she had when the ambulance took her mom away.

"How…how will you fix him?" Rum asked. He didn't _sound_ like he was crying. He sounded like he was lost, which was just as bad. Belle took his hand again, about to cry herself because she felt so bad for him.

"I'll give him stitches," she said. "He'll be good as new."

"Will it hurt?" Rum asked, wiping his nose on his shoulder with a shrug.

"I don't think so," Belle said doubtfully, looking at his bear. "But even if it does, you'll be holding him so he'll know it will be okay."

Rum tightened his grip on her hand but didn't say anything.

Belle had to let go of him again to climb up onto the counter and into the cabinet where her mom's sewing stuff was. It was very high and she was a little bit scared, but Rum stayed right behind her, just like he did when she climbed up the ladder to his tree-house, so she pretended it didn't bother her at all. When she had the little kit, with its needles and thread and little scissors, Belle led Rum into her room and made him sit on her bed. He looked all around when he first came in, but then he looked down at his bear and seemed to lose interest in her clothes and books and toys.

"Okay," Belle instructed, "you hold him on your lap and I'll sit by you and sew up the tears, okay?"

"Okay," he muttered. Carefully, he laid his bear on his knobby knees. But the brown fur was hanging down from the white stuffing and the bear looked so hurt and beat up that Belle couldn't help but let out a little gasp. Rum flinched. His hands started dancing around his bear, arranging the strips of cloth where they were supposed to go, tucking the stuffing back inside. Usually, Belle loved watching his hands, but they were stiff and almost awkward now, which made her feel even worse.

"That's right," she made herself say, so Rum wouldn't think she was giving up. "Put it like it's supposed to go."

She opened the kit and took out a needle and some brown thread. It wasn't the right color of brown, a little bit lighter and thicker, but it was the only brown she had enough of and it was close enough. When she looked up, Rum was staring at the needle, his eyes wide and big.

"It's okay," she told him quickly. "I saw Mama do this a hundred times, and she showed me how. She helped me make a little doll. I'll be very careful."

"Promise?" he asked shakily.

"Promise," she said, and she smiled at him.

His shoulders drooped a little bit and he nodded. "All right. Don't hurt him, though."

"You hold him," she said, and then she didn't talk anymore because she needed to concentrate _very_ hard. It had been much easier to do this when she'd been _making_ something instead of fixing something that was already made, and she wasn't quite sure how to tie off the ends so she just guessed, and it made her miss her mom. But it also made her feel good, too, using something her mom had taught her to help her friend, and it was nice to see all the rips she put back together disappear and get made whole. She pretended not to hear Rum's little sniffles, or feel the hot, wet tears that dripped onto her knuckles as she sewed neat stitches, and she pretended that she didn't have to blink very hard sometimes, too, to get rid of the blurry wetness that made it hard for her to see what she was doing.

It took a very, _very_ long time, so long that she was afraid her dad would come home and see her with the needles she wasn't supposed to touch on her own or find out that Rum was in her room with her. But finally, when her tummy was starting to growl, she finished stitching up the last of the tears, and there was no more white stuffing to be seen anywhere. She tied off the last knot as close to what Mama had done as she could remember, and then sat back, letting the needle drop and stretching out her cramped hands.

"There," she said.

Rum didn't say anything. He just sat there and lifted his bear and looked at him, from the front to the back and upside down and every which way. Belle looked at the bear with him, and bit her lip. One ear was gone and his eyes were crooked and the brown thread showed up very clearly against the darker brown fur and he had a little bulge on his tummy and he wasn't smiling like he had been before. He looked almost like a whole different bear entirely, and for all that Belle had tried to be very careful with her stitches, they were big and clumsy and sometimes didn't close as much as they should.

Suddenly, it seemed like she hadn't done a very good job at all. And Rum still wasn't talking, just looking at his bear, his face like it was when he didn't want anyone to know what he was really thinking. Belle held her breath, about to apologize for ruining his bear when she'd only wanted to help, when Rum suddenly let out a long sigh and then he looked right at her and smiled. It was the biggest, happiest, brightest smile she'd ever seen him make.

"He's perfect!" he exclaimed, and then, for the very first time ever, he got up and he reached out and he hugged Belle. She blushed when she felt him leave a sloppy kiss on her cheek. "Thank you, Belle! You helped me rescue him and you stitched him all up! You're the best friend ever! He's perfect," he said again, as if he couldn't believe it at all.

Belle smiled and laughed, delighted to see him so loud and relieved and _happy_. She even clapped her hands again and jumped up and down, then blushed and giggled at the same time when Rum gave her another hug. "You don't mind that he looks a bit different?" she asked, and maybe she was a little nervous even though Rum didn't seem to care.

"He does look different," Rum admitted, but then he shrugged. "But he's grown up now and he's probably mad at me for letting him go. But I'm just glad he's back, and he's all safe, and I won't ever let anyone hurt him again."

"I'll…I'll help you," Belle offered shyly.

Rum smiled at her. "Okay," he said. He took a deep breath then, like he was trying to be brave, and held his bear out. "Here. Do you…do you want to hold him?"

"Can I?" Belle felt like it was hard to breathe and her heart was doing that floating thing again where it seemed like she'd be able to fly with it holding her up all by itself.

"Yeah," Rum said slowly. And he set the bear in her hands.

Belle was very careful with the bear, knowing how much he meant to Rum. She held him close against her ballooning heart and patted his back extra gently. He was very soft and cuddly, and the little extra bulges and differences seemed to make him extra huggable. "He is perfect," Belle said softly.

"Yeah." Rum watched her very closely for a minute while she rocked his bear a bit in her arms. Then he said, very quickly, "His name is Bae. I've never told anyone before, but if you're going to help me take care of him, you should know."

"Bae," Belle repeated. "I like it."

"Me, too," Rum said, and he smiled again. Belle felt her breath tremble and fall down in her throat when Rum reached out and placed his hand over hers on Bae's back.

"Will you stay for dinner?" she asked before she could remind herself that he didn't like being here and her dad might show up and not like him being here. She asked anyway, because she wanted him to stay and she didn't want him to leave, and what she really wanted to ask him was if he'd stay _forever_.

Rum gave her another smile, and this one wasn't big or overexcited or like a laugh. It was small and it was quiet and it was filled with secrets, just like him. She'd never seen anyone smile like that before, but she thought it was her favorite smile ever.

"I'd like that," he said, and he didn't stop smiling, and Belle was pretty sure he was saying he'd like to stay forever, too.

It was just like the happy endings in her books—but better. Because it was hers.


End file.
